Tiny Triumphs

I try to hold fast to the belief that the difference between success and failure is usually just one more try. Some where I have come upon the wisdom that says that in order to end up on our feet we just have to get up one more time than we get knocked down. It is not always that easy to spot success just about to show up when we are in the middle of the string of failures that are helping us to learn how to be successful or to get right whatever it is we have our sights on. Am I working up to a treatise on the larger lessons of life here? Well no, it is just about knitting - for now, anyway.

I

I had bought the yarn a couple of years ago in a moment of bargain tub weakness. A lovely silk mix with a nubbly texture, the six balls bundled together as a job lot beckoned alluringly with their marked down to a not-to-be-missed-price tag. Whatever I would make with it was far from my mind at the time. Some how it didn't quite match up to any patterns I wanted to make and as it shed little organge bits when I worked with it I had put it aside. Then looking around on Knitting Daily I found a scarf pattern. Never very satisfied with any previous efforts with stitches that incorporated lacey holes, I thought the unevenness of the yarn might disguise any flaws in the execution so needles ready and off I went. It took no fewer than seven tries to get beyond the eighth row of the pattern. I don't know what suprised me more; the eventual success or the tenacity in unravelling and knitting up that many times. Vacuuming up a shower of little orange bobbles, I figured out that probably what made it so hard to start with was my assumption that it would be really easy and therefore didn't warrant the focus and attention that it did. So now I will face the cooler weather with a new wrap; whether it is a large scarf or a small shawl time will tell I guess.